Abi Stone

¡Fantástico!

YouTube video by TheAbiStone "Dunes, diamonds and dust": An invited lecture for the RGS (Royal Geographical Society)

Not about the archaeology or the former “green corridors”, but for anyone who is interested in the wonderful #NamibSandSea #desert #drylands heres a short 🎦 for you…

youtu.be/AFSbln9uN-4?...

@uomseed.bsky.social @uomhums.bsky.social

Dried lakebed in desert landscape, dunes in the distance, dramatic clouds overhead, shrubs in foreground.

Using luminescence dating, @abistone.bsky.social and her colleagues aim to shine a light on a neglected part of Africa’s archaeological record, out in the remote, hyper-arid landscapes of the Namib Sand Sea. @pans-river-namib.bsky.social
👉 media.leverhulme.ac.uk/feature/astone

Many congratulations Inèz! 🥳

Peak Groundwater: Aquifer‐Scale Limits to Groundwater Withdrawals Peak Groundwater is the maximum groundwater withdrawal rate from an aquifer followed by reduced withdrawal rates caused by depletion effects Peak Groundwater traces dynamic flow pathways across g...

One to line up for the new intake of #WSPM (Water, Science Policy & Management) MSc students ready for the Climate and Catchment modeuke @oxfordgeography.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1029/2025...

Very cool research by Weaver et al. (2025)

www.nature.com/articles/s43...

The death of dinosaurs dramatically re-engineered Earth's landscapes Changes in rock formations from before and after the mass extinction event 66 million years ago may reflect how dinosaurs acted as ecosystem engineers, shaping vegetation and even the meandering of ri...

Dinosaurs as #ecosystemengineers !

#biogeomorphology

www.newscientist.com/article/2496...

The day before the #UKLum25 conference @standrewssgsd.bsky.social we had a fabulous day working with a fleet of #portableluminescencereaders

I’m looking forward to the #luminescence community catch-up next week at the conference in St Andrews, and the opportunity talk about the work Shashank is leading on establishing the timing of dune accumulation in the western part of the Thar Desert.

#UKLum2025
@uomseed.bsky.social

🌎 Tonight, we ushered in a new era of weather and climate monitoring.

EUMETSAT's MetOp-SG-A1, weather satellite – which hosts the Copernicus Sentinel-5 mission – successfully launched aboard an Ariane 6 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

🔗 www.esa.int/Applications...

A cold dip and mini rainbows in the sky on holiday in Germany…

Quaternary dryland dynamics: perspectives and prospects | Cambridge Prisms: Drylands | Cambridge Core Quaternary dryland dynamics: perspectives and prospects - Volume 2

🚨New paper alert

doi.org/10.1017/dry....

A painting of a beach scene, with lots of risks taken by people on the beach, including fossil spotting under the cliff, standing at the cliff edge and people ignoring coastal warning signs.

It's tempting to pick a spot on the beach near cliffs: they provide shade and wind protection.
But take a look at this pic: can you see the potential risks?

Click here to find the answers, and learn more about beach safety: www.resortdorset.com/features/227...

More #FieldworkFriday
The site of Khommabes in the north of the #NamibSandSea, which contains a palimpsest of ESA, MSA & LSA #archaeology

This view looks northeast from a patch of nebkah dunes. Off to the left of the photo is a calcrete-capped interdune pan that used to hold water

🚨 New paper landing soon.
An invited review for Cambridge Prisms: Drylands (www.cambridge.org/core/journal...) about #Quaternary #dryland dynamics. Some areas of emerging consensus, plus remaining contradictions. A short review (<5,000 words): selective not exhaustive

And in the afternoon in session 28 #SAfA2025 from Selina Amaral, @matzearch.bsky.social, our work from @pans-river-namib.bsky.social & Heinrich Kurt

#archaeology
#openair
#surfacesites
#lithics
#kalahari
#namib
#MSA
#ESA

A fascinating morning so far in session 28 #SAfA2025 hearing about the Kgalagadi District: survey, luminescence dating, duricrust formation & lithics from @khoproject.bsky.social members @isotopesrule.bsky.social @taylorgrandfield.bsky.social Inez Faul & Rowena Winterhalder

#lithics
#archaeology

Many thanks to you to you & all the volunteers for such a friendly welcome at the registration desks!
Aren’t the tote bags a gorgeous colour.
Have a great conference!

Really looking forward to heading to my first Society of African Archaeologists conference next week, talking about our group’s research out in the Namib Sand Seaz

#SANDS
#PANS
#archaeology
#safaconference2025
#lithics
#NamibSandSea
#EarlierStoneAge
#MiddleStoneAge

To mark our 100th anniversary, the Trust Board is pleased to announce the Leverhulme Centenary Awards – a £100 million investment to support pioneering research centres, doctoral scholars and rising academic leaders.

Read more here: www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/100mill...

Some excellent news for Monday morning

#dust #Quaternary over the last 30,000 years with millennial pacing

“variability in proportions of Nn vs. Sn hemisphere sourced dust in the Eastern Equatorial Pacific is indicative of large climate-related meridional shifts (>7°) in the average position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone”

Fantastic news!
Congratulations & well done everyone. I can’t wait to read it!

The annual fieldclass begins…
@uomseed.bsky.social

Abi's staff profile picture from her academic page at the University of Manchester, where she is a Reader in Physical Geography https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/abi.stone

Abi in the Namib Sand Sea, at the site of Namib IV, sitting on a dune, with the sun setting. She wears a dusty top and is smiling at the camera.

A photo taken looking down at Abi in a geotrench, sampling for luminescence dating. There is an opaque tube in the sediment and a hammer in her right hand. She wears a black cap, shorts and t-shirt.

Abi is operating a Dormer Engineering hand-operated sand auger on a dune flank at Namib IV. She is twisting the auger with a silly look on her face. She wears walking boots and shorts and t-shirt, with sunglasses. The sky is blue and the sand very orange, with tufts of grass less than a meter tall.

Abi Stone is a dryland Quaternary scientist & geochronologist interested in long-term landscape & environmental change, based at @uomseed.bsky.social @uniofmanchester.bsky.social
She's worked in the Namib on & off since ~2005, & range of other deserts.

research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/a...

"Scissor Graph" showing men overtaking women in proportional representation in sciences after doctorate

Happy International Women's Day! Despite the efforts, while much more women enter scientific fields, due to numerous factors, few manage to remain in the field or secure senior positions. Support your coworkers, call out harmful systemic behaviour. 😘

A Bluesky account for updates in all things #NamibSandSeaArchaeology
as our team project gets started

If you like your African Stone Age archaeology in the landscape on desert pans, follow along!

Will try to remember its there & add some #NamibPandRiver hashtags here too as I go

#Archaeology

Some of it will be new to us, so please do keep sharing your green wisdom!

Apologies for poor typing typo on a broken phone Huw! 🤦‍♀️

Longstanding behavioural stability in West Africa extends to the Middle Pleistocene at Bargny, coastal Senegal - Nature Ecology & Evolution The late Middle Pleistocene site of Bargny, Senegal, documents stone tool trends seen across contemporary sites in Africa but which, in West Africa, remain uniquely stable into the Holocene. Palaeoenv...

Time to learn some more about the West African MSA! They were not only in rainforests 150,000 years ago, they were also in mangrove forests!
www.nature.com/articles/s41...